Part 9 (1/2)

He looked up the hill behind him, and made a gesture in the air with his hand above his head. I turned to look up the hill also. I saw the corporal at the gate repeat the gesture; then a big bicycle corps, four abreast, guns on their backs, slid round the corner and came gliding down the hill. There was not a sound, not the rattle of a chain or a pedal.

”Thank you very much,” said the captain. ”Be so kind as to keep close to the bank.”

When I reached my gate I found some of the men of the guard dragging a big, long log down the road, and I watched them while they attached it to a tree at my gate, and swung it across to the opposite side of the road, making in that way a barrier about five feet high. I asked what that was for? ”Captain's orders,” was the laconic reply. But when it was done the corporal took the trouble to explain that it was a barricade to prevent the Germans from making a dash up the hill.

”However,” he added, ”don't you get nervous. If we chase them out it will only be a little rifle practice, and I doubt if they even have any ammunition.”

As I turned to go into the house, he called after me,--

”See here, I notice that you've got doors on all sides of your house.

Better lock all those but this front one.”

As all the windows were barred and so could be left open, I didn't mind; so I went in and locked up. The thing was getting to be funny to me,--always doing something, and nothing happening. I suppose courage is a c.u.mulative thing, if only one has time to acc.u.mulate, and these boys in khaki treated even the cannonading as if it were all ”in the day's work.”

It was just dusk when the bicycle corps returned up the hill. They had to dismount and wheel their machines under the barricade, and they did it so prettily, dismounting and remounting with a precision that was neat.

”Nothing,” reported the captain. ”We could not go in far,--road too rough and too dangerous. It is a cavalry job.”

All the same, I am sure the Uhlans are there.

XIII

September 8, 1914.

I had gone to bed early on Friday night, and had pa.s.sed an uneasy night.

It was before four when I got up and opened my shutters. It was a lovely day. Perhaps I have told you that the weather all last week was simply perfect.

I went downstairs to get coffee for the picket, but when I got out to the gate there was no picket there. There was the barricade, but the road was empty. I ran up the road to Amelie's. She told me that they had marched away about an hour before. A bicyclist had evidently brought an order. As no one spoke English, no one understood what had really happened. Pere had been to Couilly--they had all left there.

So far as any one could discover there was not an English soldier, or any kind of a soldier, left anywhere in the commune.

This was Sat.u.r.day morning, September 5, and one of the loveliest days I ever saw. The air was clear. The sun was s.h.i.+ning.

The birds were singing. But otherwise it was very still. I walked out on the lawn. Little lines of white smoke were rising from a few chimneys at Joncheroy and Voisins. The towns on the plain, from Monthyon and Penchard on the horizon to Mareuil in the valley, stood out clear and distinct. But after three days of activity, three days with the soldiers about, it seemed, for the first time since I came here, lonely; and for the first time I realized that I was actually cut off from the outside world. All the bridges in front of me were gone, and the big bridge behind me. No communication possibly with the north, and none with the south except by road over the hill to Lagny. Esbly evacuated, Couilly evacuated, Quincy evacuated. All the shops closed.

No government, no post-office, and absolutely no knowledge of what had happened since Wednesday. I had a horrible sense of isolation.

Luckily for me, part of the morning was killed by what might be called an incident or a disaster or a farce--just as you look at it. First of all, right after breakfast I had the proof that I was right about the Germans. Evidently well informed of the movements of the English, they rode boldly into the open. Luckily they seemed disinclined to do any mischief. Perhaps the place looked too humble to be bothered with.

They simply asked--one of them spoke French, and perhaps they all did--where they were, and were told, ”Huiry, commune of Quincy.” They looked it up on their maps, nodded, and asked if the bridges on the Marne had been destroyed, to which I replied that I did not know,--I had not been down to the river. Half a truth and half a lie, but goodness knows that it was hard enough to have to be polite. They thanked me civilly enough and rode down the hill, as they could not pa.s.s the barricade unless they had wished to give an exhibition of ”high school.”

Wherever they had been they had not suffered. Their horses were fine animals, and both horses and men were well groomed and in prime condition.

The other event was distressing, but about that I held my tongue.

Just after the Germans were here, I went down the road to call on my new French friends at the foot of the hill, to hear how they had pa.s.sed the night, and incidentally to discover if there were any soldiers about.

Just in the front of their house I found an English bicycle scout, leaning on his wheel and trying to make himself understood in a one-sided monosyllabic dialogue, with the two girls standing in their window.

I asked him who he was. He showed his papers. They were all right--an Irishman--Ulster--Royal Innisfall Fusiliers--thirteen years in the service.

I asked him if there were any English soldiers left here. He said there was still a bicycle corps of scouts at the foot of the hill, at Couilly.